The Voice Line / the two quotes
read aloud, or shown
The price read aloud and the price on the screen
A price spoken on a call is not always the price a screen shows for the same market at the same moment. This page matches 1,200 telephone bets to their screen price, counts how often the spoken price was worse, and shows what the gap comes to.
Desk spec
- matched bets
- 1,200
- worse on the phone
- 408
- equal
- 744
- better
- 48
- worse share
- 34.0%
- mean gap where worse
- 2.7%
the price read aloudThe spoken price, obtained after a hold. Across 1,200 matched bets it was worse than the screen in 408 and worse by a mean 2.7%.
the recordingThe record of what was said, kept for a fixed window. Of 96 disputes it decided 71, and 46 of those against the caller.
the channel costHold time plus call time. A mean 9.5 minutes on the line, or 4.75 where a number is billed at 0.50 a minute.
Direct answer
For the same market at the same moment, the price read aloud on a call was worse than the screen price in 408 of 1,200 invented matched bets, equal in 744 and better in 48. Where it was worse it was worse by a mean of 2.7%, and the price is spoken after a wait rather than shown before the call.
| outcome | bets | share | mean gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| worse on the phone | 408 | 34.0% | 2.7% worse |
| equal | 744 | 62.0% | 0.0% |
| better on the phone | 48 | 4.0% | 1.1% better |
| the phone is worse more often than it is better, by a factor of | 8.5x | ||
where the gap comes from
three reasons the spoken price can differ
1 the market moved between the screen
quote and the spoken one
the price is read after the hold, not before it
2 the two menus are not the same
the spoken menu is a fraction of the screen menu
3 the price is read, not printed
a printed price can be compared; a spoken one
is agreed the moment it is accepted
worse 408, equal 744, better 48
so the channel is neutral most of the time
and worse more than eight times as often
as it is better
The point is not that a spoken price is dishonest. It is that a spoken price arrives after a wait and is accepted in the moment, where a printed one can be compared before it is taken.